International Office: We just can't do more

When I discussed my intention to attend KU I had a number of international students who had attended previously tell me they had a negative experience. Of those I talked to who had negative things to say, most had dropped out. The reason given? Negative social immersion and experience.

The whole point of having international students on campus is dual cultural exchange. A key part of that is cultural immersion and engagement. That's hard enough for international students in ideal conditions. Socially isolating students by limiting them to housing 30 and 40+ minutes outside the city is crippling for any hope of a social life among all but the most social of students. When the only housing being offered in a remotely reasonable timeframe are dorm rooms for/near DTU, something is really wrong with the system. Further, it's not as though KKIK and CIU manage to offer housing pre-arrival. At best they take over a month to offer *something*.

In general I see the students that were able to find housing in/near Copenhagen about 3x more often than the ones that accepted housing outside of Copenhagen. Most of those interactions are tied directly to courses and class, since it's difficult (and brutally expensive) for them to enter the city for social events, or for casual interaction.

"The priority of the University is teaching and research, not housing, according to Trine Sand."

That's all well and good, but just try learning or researching when you're being forced to move from apartment to apartment every 2 months, or crashing in friend's spare room's for 2/3 of your first semester.

There's plenty of housing available for semester+ exchange students. It's not a true issue of available resources, it's an issue of priorities and seemingly either not caring or not truly grasping the situation.

I invite the staff in change of making the decisions to sign up on the housing websites and post as a male international student seeking housing. While only able to make inquiries in broken Danish (or English/another language).

To the other commenter - sure, Danish students do. It's also rougher for those coming from other parts of Denmark. But you're still able to speak the language fluently, have family/social connections and a network here, are familiar with the culture, and have all of the key infrastructure in place. Try getting your CPR without an apartment. Or for that matter, try getting any number of basic services (cell phone plans etc) without a CPR. Have you tried calling on apartments when using a bad skype connection from an internet cafe? Probably not.

In copenhagen all new students are short on housing not matter if they are from far away or "just" the other end of denmark.
As long at University of copenhagen provides information such as links to KKIK and CIU they have done their part (the websides are avalible in english).
When you deside to study abroad one of the things you have to face is the change in university culture - and in denmark universities don't have accomodation.

It's a part of the experience - and danish students also have to live outside the citicenter ;)